AI-generated images are generally not copyright-free in the sense people assume, and they are also not protected the way a photograph or drawing is. In the United States, an image produced by an AI system without meaningful human creative input cannot be copyrighted, so no one owns it and no one can stop others from copying it. But that same image can still expose you to legal risk: it may infringe copyrighted works the model was trained on, it may depict a real person in ways that violate right-of-publicity laws, and the platform that generated it almost certainly imposes contract terms on how you use it.
Why Purely AI-Generated Images Aren’t Protected
U.S. copyright protects “original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.”1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 102 – Subject Matter of Copyright: In General The Copyright Office and federal courts read “authorship” to require a human. The Office’s Compendium of practices states it “will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author.”2U.S. Copyright Office. Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition, Chapter 300: Copyrightable Authorship
Two decisions have cemented that rule for AI. In Thaler v. Perlmutter, Stephen Thaler tried to register an image called “A Recent Entrance to Paradise” that was created entirely by his AI system, the Creativity Machine. He listed the AI as the sole author. The Copyright Office refused registration, the district court affirmed, and on March 18, 2025, the D.C. Circuit affirmed as well, holding that “the Creativity Machine cannot be the recognized author of a copyrighted work because the Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being.”3United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Thaler v. Perlmutter
The Copyright Office reached the same conclusion for the graphic novel Zarya of the Dawn, created by Kris Kashtanova using Midjourney. The Office registered the human-written text and Kashtanova’s selection and arrangement of images, but denied protection for the individual AI-generated illustrations. The reasoning: Midjourney’s output was unpredictable enough that Kashtanova didn’t have the creative control needed to be the author of those specific images.4U.S. Copyright Office. Letter re: Zarya of the Dawn Registration #VAu001480196
The practical result: generate an image with an AI tool, leave it as-is, and anyone can copy it. You have no exclusive right to enforce.
When AI-Assisted Images Can Be Copyrighted
Copyright with AI isn’t all-or-nothing. A work that includes AI-generated material can still be protected, but only for the parts a human actually authored. The Copyright Office’s guidance draws a firm line at prompts: typing “a sunset over a futuristic city in watercolor style” into an image generator doesn’t make you the author, because the AI is choosing the colors, composition, and detail — the expressive elements copyright protects.5United States Copyright Office. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence
Protection becomes possible when a human exercises genuine creative control. The Copyright Office’s January 2025 report identifies several paths:6U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability Report
- Selecting specific AI-generated elements and combining them into an original composition, similar to a collage.
- Substantially modifying AI output by painting over portions, compositing multiple outputs, or altering colors and elements. Copyright then covers the modified portions.
- Using AI as an assisting tool, the way a photographer uses a camera, where the human determines the expressive choices and the tool executes them.
Even here, copyright reaches only the human-authored aspects. The underlying AI-generated material stays unprotected. Arrange twelve AI images into a creative layout and the layout is yours; the twelve images are not.
Documenting Your Creative Input
If you plan to claim copyright in work involving AI, keep records from the start. Save your iterative prompts, screenshots of intermediate outputs, notes on which elements you kept or rejected, and files showing your manual edits. The Copyright Office evaluates “the extent to which the human had creative control over the work’s expression,” and that evaluation turns on what you can show.5United States Copyright Office. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence Vague claims of creative direction won’t hold up; specific evidence of choices and changes will.
Registering a Work That Includes AI-Generated Material
If you want to register a work with AI-generated content, follow the disclosure rules the Copyright Office set out in its March 2023 guidance.
Use the Standard Application, not the Single Application, which requires all content to come from one individual. The electronic filing fee for a Standard Application is $65.7U.S. Copyright Office. Fees In the “Author Created” field, describe what the human contributed. The Office suggests language along the lines of: “Selection, coordination, and arrangement of [describe human-authored content] created by the author and [describe AI content] generated by artificial intelligence.”5United States Copyright Office. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence
Do not list an AI tool or its developer as an author. Any AI-generated content that amounts to more than a trivial portion of the work must be excluded under “Limitation of the Claim.” The “Note to CO” field is available for explaining the human-AI boundary.
Skipping the disclosure is risky. If the Copyright Office finds you omitted information essential to registrability, it can cancel the registration. Separately, under 17 U.S.C. § 411(b), a court can disregard your registration in an infringement lawsuit if you knowingly provided inaccurate information and accurate information would have caused refusal.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 411 – Registration and Civil Infringement Actions Because registration is a prerequisite for filing a U.S. copyright infringement suit, losing it strips your ability to enforce the copyright in court.
Your AI Image Can Still Infringe Someone Else’s Work
The bigger risk for many users runs in the opposite direction from ownership. Generative models are trained on huge datasets that typically include copyrighted images. Prompt an AI to produce something “in the style of” a specific artist, or get an output that closely resembles an existing copyrighted work, and you are in uncertain legal territory.
Several lawsuits are testing this. In Andersen v. Stability AI, artists allege that Stability AI’s model was trained on their copyrighted works without permission and that it can produce outputs substantially similar to those works; the case is in active litigation as of mid-2025. In New York Times v. OpenAI, a federal court in April 2025 allowed direct and contributory copyright infringement claims to proceed, denying motions to dismiss those core claims.
The standard for visual infringement, “substantial similarity,” is hard for courts to apply to images. Unlike text, which can be compared word by word, images are evaluated as an overall impression, and generative AI is designed to reproduce the kinds of stylistic patterns that are hardest to analyze under current doctrine. Until these cases produce clearer precedent, every AI image carries some risk of being found substantially similar to a copyrighted work in the training data.
So “I can’t copyright it” is not the same as “I can safely use it.” An image you cannot own can still get you sued if it copies too closely from something someone else does own.
Real People and the Right of Publicity
Copyright is only one of the intellectual property issues with AI images. If the image depicts a real person, whether a celebrity, a public figure, or a private individual, you can face liability under right-of-publicity laws regardless of the image’s copyright status.
A majority of states protect right of publicity through statute or common law, giving individuals control over the commercial use of their name, image, and likeness. Using an AI-generated image of a recognizable person to sell products, promote a business, or drive engagement can trigger these protections even though no camera was involved and no photograph was copied.
At the federal level, the NO FAKES Act has been introduced to create a national standard for protecting individuals’ voices and visual likenesses against unauthorized AI-generated replicas, imposing liability on both creators and platforms while carving out First Amendment protections. It has been introduced but not enacted as of 2025.9Congress.gov. S.1367 – 119th Congress (2025-2026): NO FAKES Act of 2025 State laws alone already produce cease-and-desist actions and settlements involving AI likenesses of celebrities.
Platform Terms Still Bind You
Copyright law may not protect an AI-generated image, but the terms of service for the tool that made it almost certainly restrict how you use, share, or commercialize the output. Many platforms grant users broad licenses to their outputs, and some declare that users “own” what they generate, though that ownership language means less than it sounds when the underlying image isn’t copyrightable.
Read the indemnification clauses closely. Some platforms shift legal risk onto users for any intellectual property claim arising from output, so if a generated image infringes a third party’s copyright or likeness rights, you carry the cost of defending. Others cap their own liability while leaving yours uncapped for IP disputes. If a business is going to rely on AI-generated visuals, these agreements deserve legal review before the workflow is built around them.
Where the Law Stands in 2025
In January 2025 the Copyright Office released Part 2 of its report on AI and copyright, focused on the copyrightability of outputs. It confirmed that existing law is flexible enough to handle AI without legislative changes, that prompts alone are not sufficient for authorship, and that the Office sees no need for new protections for purely AI-generated content.6U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability Report The Office also indicated it will supplement its 2023 registration guidance and update the Compendium.10U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright Office Releases Part 2 of Artificial Intelligence Report
The D.C. Circuit’s March 2025 affirmance in Thaler gives the human-authorship requirement federal appellate backing rather than just a district court opinion.3United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Thaler v. Perlmutter The training-data cases are still working through discovery and motions, and their outcomes are likely to shape what AI companies must license and what risks flow to users. For now, the direction is clear enough to act on: if you want copyright in work involving AI, your creative contribution has to be real, substantial, and documented. If you are using raw AI output commercially, expect that you cannot stop others from copying it, and understand that you can still be held responsible if it copies from someone else.